Saturday, 20 April 2013

Commuting babies and twinkling sheep

the need of many mothers to work, has added baby commuters to those travelling with me. They are bundled up in pushchairs and make their journey to nursery or childminders, with their mothers then continuing on to work.

Mostly they do so with happy curiosity or contentedly asleep, bus napping in your own customised seat and with someone else responsible for the logistics of the journey looks most pleasant. Occasionally however they are less enamoured of their circumstances and vent their feelings with ear splitting shrieks, even I find it hard to nap through those sounds..

The current baby regular is most often accompanied by a slightly bedraggled bemused looking bunny. Bunny keeps her company and for the most part smiling, oh but the day there was a falling out, well bunny did not so much fall as be repeatedly tossed to the floor. Tired of the "I throw it down, you pick it up " game, mother confiscated bunny and the wail of "I want bunny" was heartrending for a whole stop, till you recalled bunny's fate if restored was to be tossed again to the floor. Following Easter, bunny appears to have retired and been replaced by a bright yellow chick, trips to the floor not having bedraggled it as yet.

A slightly older child joined the cavalcade one day and had been learning rhymes, Twinkle twinkle little sheep, yip, sheep, the child had a toy sheep and repeated the one line phrase over and over. It was firmly stuck in my head by the time I got off the bus. You must know how it goes when you get something replaying in your head like that, although I expect it is usually annoying tunes from adverts or snippets of songs half heard from some other persons on board music fest. Anyway, I had to finish it off to get rid of it. Now I do not know if I made this up in whole or in part of if I just dredged it up out of my memory but...

Twinkle twinkle little sheep
I count ewe when I can't sleep
Jumping fences in my mind
when sleep I can not find
Twinkle twinkle little sheep
Do you count me when you can't sleep?